Romania spent $6.7bn on mine restructuring to no avail

At the end of last week, an engineer and four electricians aged between 36 and 41 were killed in the latest accident that has occurred in a mine of Romania, whose closure had been under discussion for almost a year.
The tragedy of Uricani, a mine owned by Compania Națională a Huilei, is however bringing to the surface 20 years of failed attempts at reorganising a field that has so far swallowed up around $6.7bn in subsidies, is generating annual losses of hundreds of million euros and debts of billions, but that is continuously claiming human lives.
“In 1990-2006 the state spent $6.3bn to support the mining sector, structured along product subsidies, social protection subsidies, capital allocation for investments. In 2007-2009 state aid granted for the mineral coal mining industry revolved around 1bn RON and capital allocation for lignite of 119.3m RON,” Economy Ministry representatives told ZF when questioned about mining restructuring costs.
Despite these billions of dollars that were spent, coal mines are still making victims, in the context where post-1990 statistical data show an accident out of three is registered in the extraction industry alone and around 60% of total accidents in this industry occur in Valea Jiului.
As regards Compania Națională a Huilei, one of the biggest black holes of the economy, its overhauling has been dragging on for years, despite the mountain of drawn up strategies.